


Incongruity

by orphan_account



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Character Study, Established Relationship, M/M, Outsider Perspective, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-22
Updated: 2015-06-22
Packaged: 2018-04-05 14:58:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4184169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Havoc ponders the relationship between the chief and the boss. He just doesn't <i>get</i> it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Incongruity

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for day 2 of [RoyEd Week](http://royedweek.tumblr.com/) over on tumblr, with the prompt being similarities/differences or parallels. This is set vaguely post-mangahood, obviously not 108 compliant.

Havoc... Doesn't really get it. The thing with chief and the boss, that is. Well, he doesn't get the whole guy thing, just for starters. He's always dug chicks, always been admittedly a little stupid over them. Dudes aren't really all that nice to look at, in Havoc's opinion, and chicks are like dudes except they _are_ nice to look at, so if you could have the best of both worlds why wouldn't you? He'd honestly thought that the chief felt the same way, been a little bit put off by exactly how _much_ the chief felt the same way, as a matter of fact. So it was a bit of a shock, to find out that the chief was into the boss. And Havoc hadn't ever really thought about what the boss was into, ‘cause he'd never really seemed interested in any _body_ except for his brother's, and in that case it wasn't exactly that kind of interest, was it?  
  
Though now that Havoc _is_ thinking of it, he can't really help but acknowledge that a good bit of the chief's womanizing and philandering was a cover for all the spying and information-gathering he'd needed to do in order to go up against Bradley. And in that he guesses the chief and the boss are really alike, with their razor-sharp focus and single-minded drive towards their goals. Whereas the chief hid his ambition behind laziness and playboy antics, the boss wore his like a shield, ploughing through every obstacle that stood between him and his goal even as the chief preferred to slip around them. Two different approaches to what, Havoc realizes, is essentially the same thing.  
  
So he guesses that it might not be about bodies, especially since he doesn't know all that much about what either the boss or the chief is actually into, not really. And he can already see how on some levels the boss and the chief are a lot alike. But Havoc really doesn't get how two people who fight so much can really get along enough to build a solid relationship. And putting aside the possibility that it's all just about angry sex (because Havoc really doesn't need to think about some things), he just doesn't _get_ how it works.

The chief and the boss are... not exactly even tempered, not either one of them, though it's again one of the things that the boss expresses freely (and loudly) while the chief plays it close to the chest. Everyone on base has a story about being sideswiped by Hurricane Elric, but Havoc's almost entirely sure that no one outside the team has ever seen Mustang really _angry_. They believe the nonchalant airs, thinking the chief too aloof to get worked up about much of anything, aside from the secretary pool. But Havoc still remembers furious dark eyes and a furrowed brow, and a voice ordering him to get better, brimming with rage and defiance like that alone was enough to make Havoc not broken anymore. He remembers the clinging scent of burning flesh in the air and the faint, tortured screams of a monster echoing down the halls and ringing in Havoc's ears even as his own life slipped away. He’s known the chief’s wrath and he’s known the boss's, and he knows that both run deep and true, even as the boss' is more pure, less restrained, and less bitter.  
  
That, more than anything, Havoc thinks, is the basis of their incompatibility. The boss only ever has one face, the face that's right before everyone’s eyes. He comes without strings attached, without guile or artifice. The boss is only ever what he seems to be, and it's the kind of honesty that's hard to find, it’s almost a kind of innocence and it’s impossible to destroy, even if the boss isn't exactly what anyone would call innocent.  
  
But the chief is guarded in a way the boss is incapable of. The boss lives in a world of his own making, where he can act any way he likes because nothing can touch him, but the chief is always acutely aware that he's playing in someone else's sandbox. The chief (like all of them) learned the hard way that other people (and non-people) had made the world, _manufactured_ it, and the chief, furious and unsatisfied, learned their rules so he could break them.  
  
And maybe it's about control, because the chief's sins are public but can be laid at someone else's feet while the boss' are all his own and necessarily private. The chief was forced to be the face of someone else's warmongering and so he keeps his atonement, his fear and regret and pain and _rage_ private, hidden. He can't say _'this wasn't my whim'_ without also admitting _'I had no power to stop it'_ , so he doesn't. He just keeps on, as if nothing touches him, running the show from behind the curtain, not believing that anyone but him can prevent it from happening all over again.  
  
But for the boss, the evils done were his in both deed and name. His are hidden in the dark, in a dank basement in an empty house, not exposed in the wide openness of a sandy plain. So instead of saying, _'I misused my power'_ , because that would mean admitting _'I didn't know what I was doing'_ , he shouts from the rooftops, not what he's done but what he's capable of, and trusts, blindly and completely, that someone will stop him from crossing that line again.  
  
So what is it, Havoc wonders? What binds two people together, when everything from their pasts to their dispositions to their ambitions are so completely disparate?  
  
The boss is in the office now, sitting on the chief's desk and shuffling his papers around, deliberately underfoot and grinning wickedly about it. Hawkeye's allowing it, for some reason, and the chief certainly isn't complaining, leaning back in his chair with a smug grin. He's teasing the boss- _Of course I could never get you in here to do paperwork when you actually worked for us, but_ now- and the boss is teasing back- _Oh shut the fuck up Roy, like_ you _ever get any paperwork done, you lazy asshole_ \- and they're looking at each other, like-  
  
Well. The boss' smile turns almost furtive, shy, like he wants to keep it safely tucked away from prying eyes, like it's something fragile and he's uncertain the world will be gentle with it if he lets it go, but he can't help but give it to the chief. And the chief's grin is correspondingly wider, more honest, fuller and more joyful than any Havoc has seen in a long time, and it's striking and apparent and unconstrained.  
  
Havoc looks away, down at his own neglected paperwork, hiding his own grin. He thinks he might get it, now. The thing with the chief and the boss, that is.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are always appreciated. :-)


End file.
